A new bal­let score I’ve been com­mis­sioned to write for the Pacific North­west Bal­let will be get­ting its pre­mière in a mat­ter of weeks, right here in Seat­tle! It’s been an absolute plea­sure work­ing with multi-​talented PNB dancer and chore­o­g­ra­pher Andrew Bar­tee, whose exhil­a­rat­ing move­ment slides bril­liantly between moments of sud­den ten­sion and breath­tak­ingly unex­pected res­o­lu­tions. Truly mar­velous stuff! (And a lit­tle hint: the big, inter­ac­tive stage prop is not to be missed.) Cos­tumes are designed by the won­der­ful Mark Zap­pone, and light­ing by Ran­dall G. Chiarelli. Shar­ing the pro­gram are world pre­mieres by Mar­garet Mullin and Kiyon Gaines (both PNB dancers as well), and one of ballet’s Amer­i­can mavens, Mr. Mark Mor­ris. You won’t want to miss this! For those that know my sis­ter Jes­sika, you’ll be excited to know that she’s one of the dancers in the bal­let; my par­ents’ dream of us putting on a show together is finally com­ing to fruition.

Per­for­mances are spread over the first two week­ends in Novem­ber: to be spe­cific, Nov.2 – 3, and Nov.8 – 11, with mat­inée shows on the 3rd and the 11th.

Tick­ets are already avail­able for pur­chase online at the PNB web­site, or at PNB’s box office, next door to McCaw Hall on the Seat­tle Cen­ter campus.

“Side Projects,” a new per­for­mance series pro­duced by Seth Gar­ri­son of The Fancy, will have its first show on Jan. 20th, 2012, at Gallery 1412 at 8PM. I’ll be pre­sent­ing for the first time in a live set­ting selected songs from my not-​entirely-​classical album, “The sea and its con­tents” (2011), with the help of the super-​talented Seth Gar­ri­son and pos­si­bly some guest appear­ances as well. Expect some new songs as well. Hope to see you there!

I men­tioned a while ago that I received a com­mis­sion from West­min­ster Chapel in Belle­vue, Wash­ing­ton, to write a piece for their annual Christ­mas Eve per­for­mance. The com­po­si­tion is fin­ished at last! I’m thrilled at get­ting to work with these folks; the music direc­tor, Lau­rey Berteig, is an absolutely fan­tas­tic musi­cian and per­son (two things that some­times don’t always hap­pen to be the case), and is the pri­mary rea­son for this composition’s existence.

Take a gan­der at (an albeit crappy MIDI ren­der­ing of) an ini­tial record­ing of the piece. (HINT: brass = voices. Don’t have a good enough syn­the­sizer to repli­cate the com­plex­i­ties of a choir. Pardon!)

If you’re in the area and/​or would like to spend your evening in a won­der­ful set­ting (and hear some new music), please stop by. I’d love to see you! There will be three ser­vices you can attend on the 24th: 4PM, 7PM and 11PM. I’ll be play­ing the piano and poten­tially lead­ing the ensem­ble for my piece (a fun chance, in other words, to see me in action on the West Coast)! More infor­ma­tion on where to go can be found here.

Also, check back, as I’ll be post­ing a record­ing and/​or video of the per­for­mances as a Christ­mas present to those few faith­ful read­ers out there. So long for now!